photo credit west coast woman

Dusk til Dawn
Shadow and Light
the veil is thin

The call goes out
spiritual refugees
seeking a conscious oasis-
awaken to
torrents of words
whispering past as
we linger between
the threshold of
one world and another

in

out

Truth drifting on
shattered hearts
hover just beyond
the collective reach,
pluck what is close
as mist envelops
the pain the loss the love
the ephemeral words
the 3 a.m. sentence(s)
the puzzle being solved
piece by piece
Together, Apart

We wait for Dawn.

J.S.

photo credit west coast woman

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photo Charles MacKinnon

This is where I humbly confess that I have been ‘sheep dogging’ for longer than I care to admit. Not that I did it consciously mind you, I would have been surprised and likely offended if anyone suggested I attempted to “force or nudge someone off their intended path”.

I stand here, hand raised, yes I am guilty.

This revelation came to me at a retreat I attended recently where one of the facilitators Dan Hines described part of his upbringing. His childhood included time spent on his grandfather’s sheep ranch observing sheep dogs doing their job by forcing and nudging reluctant sheep to their intended destination. Dan then described the perfect metaphor of how as humans we also tend to want to ‘sheep dog’ others in the direction that we see as right for them.

We are all probably guilty of ‘sheep dogging’ on some level or another, especially if we have raised children. Young children are easy to ‘nudge’ without them being aware of what is being done. Teenagers will see you crouched to the ground in herding position, call you on it, bolt off and break away before you have a chance to rise to your feet.

I am very aware of my need to be ‘right’ and the great difficulty I have in changing even the smallest imperfections in myself. Why would I want to take on the impossible job of trying to convince someone else to change direction?

This Hindu proverb states it perfectly:

There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain, telling everybody that his or her path is wrong.

And so, it is with great relief I will attempt to give up ‘sheep dogging’ completely, both in written and spoken word.

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Hiraeth is a Welsh word that perfectly describes my yearning for the emotions I experienced around Christmases long past. I am not alone in my ‘hiraeth’, without prompting I hear the same yearning in the voices of people I meet on the street this time of year.

It is an ambiguous loss for a season that arrives each year without fail, earlier and earlier with less and less of what my heart is longing for.

I was decorating the tree last night when I came across ‘Eagle with Santa hat’ and as I placed him on the tree it brought to mind an incident last summer that involved two mismatched birds. Their uneasy coexistence had caught my attention days earlier and I photographed them as they perched side by side in the pond in front of the house.

The Eagle is one of a pair whose nest can be seen from the house. Over the last ten years, I watched them raise their young, watched when despite all their careful tending, guarding and feeding they occasionally ‘lost’ one of the young eaglets before it could fledge. One year both eaglets were killed in the nest by a Golden Eagle and one of the pair was badly injured in the attempt to fend off the attack.

Enter the Crow……. the Scavenger and the Predator, these two are not ‘birds of a feather’ but with wonder and curiosity I watched them ‘flock together’. The Crow mercilessly dive bombs the Eagle from above when he is perched in the nesting tree but other than the occasional glance upward the Eagle seems unaffected by this constant annoyance.

Other than that, Eagle and Crow coexist peacefully enough, although the Eagle could easily do away with him with one movement of his powerful beak, he does not. The Crow always ensures he is above the talons that could make short work of him. There is a form of mutual respect between the two.

Perhaps that is what I’m feeling as I experience this homesickness for ephemeral memories of Christmas past. It is the slow erosion of mutual respect that is starting to permeate many parts of our human society. As a species, we appear to be on the verge of entering uncharted waters on many levels.

I have experienced a few ‘Christmas moments’ this year and as I look at the photograph below I realize that is probably what I am longing for. It is the fleeting moments of moving side by side with other human beings. It is the bravery it takes to spread our wings without knowing what the future will bring, and the trust that it will hold us.

Mostly I feel it is sharing and respecting this exquisite little blue planet that we find ourselves on at this moment in time. Instead of feeling sadness for a “home that maybe never was” I will go forward this year with gratitude for ‘what is’ and for this beautiful home that we all share.

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photo credit westcoastwoman

The ground began to thaw and in a flash it was Spring, time to make their way into that other world, the world of Light.
I observed each day as they gingerly emerged, their fragile petals unfurling in a gift of surrender.
They had no way of knowing that change had been afoot in the world of Light as they slept safe and warm in the protective darkness.
Rules were changing, nothing was as it had been, the warmth, the cold, the light and the dark.
The Bell Jars were placed for protection before the snow fell, days later they reemerged, safe in their glass houses.
The thought occurred….. is there a Bell Jar large enough to protect our collective humanity, our all too human hearts, the world of Light we live in?

“lyrics Janis Joplin”

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photo credit westcoastwoman

A place exists somewhere between the edge of campfire light and the surrounding forest that cannot be named. Distant enough from the laughter and storytelling that the draw into the surrounding darkness is tangible.

She awoke to find herself rooted in this unnamed space and unable to remember how long she had lingered there. Her feet moved towards the familiar light of the fire until she stood close behind the gathered circle. There was no notice of her presence and it appeared the circle was unbroken, she would not be missed.

A turn and movement into the utter darkness of the path ahead, the inability to see her foot as it moved forward made it clear that for some time this journey would be without light or destination.

written in response to a word prompt, the word “clear”, limited to six sentences.